{"id":43,"date":"2010-10-02T15:48:55","date_gmt":"2010-10-02T15:48:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rbwood.com\/dir\/index.php\/2010\/10\/02\/comingsoon\/"},"modified":"2010-10-02T15:48:55","modified_gmt":"2010-10-02T15:48:55","slug":"comingsoon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rbwood.com\/dir\/comingsoon\/","title":{"rendered":"Chapter One Snippet"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"TheProdigalsFoole_Kindle\"<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

Present Day<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

The old lady next to me in the window seat died somewhere over the Atlantic. I know because she told me.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cSymon Bryson.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The husky voice surprised me. I hadn\u2019t spoken to anyone either at Dublin airport or on the flight. I first looked to my right the see the well-built, mustached man sleeping next to me. By the number of empty little bottles of vodka on his tray table, I guessed that his sleep wasn\u2019t due to exhaustion.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cSymon Bryson. Look at me.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

I turned slowly to look at the old lady. She was staring at me through milky-white eyes, smiling.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWho are you?\u201d I asked cautiously.<\/span><\/p>\n

Most people would freak out if a corpse suddenly reanimated and wanted to have a nice chat with them. Not me.<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019d seen worse.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWho I am matters not,\u201d croaked the old woman.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYoda?\u201d I said. No one in the supernatural world of Heaven and Hell\u2014the Shadow-world\u2014gets pop culture references. It\u2019s a sad commentary on the priorities of the Shadow-world.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI have a warning for you. Fortunately this body died so I could use it to speak with you.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOh goodie,\u201d I said, sighing. \u201cLay it on me then.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYour return to Boston at this time is not happenstance.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cLook, dead lady,\u201d I snarled, pulling a scrap of paper from my pocket. \u201cI\u2019m going to see the Monsignor, find out what this telegram he sent is all about, and get the Hell back to Dublin as soon as humanly possible. Who the Hell sends a telegram in this day and age anyway?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYou must not give in to your powers, Symon,\u201d the creepy dead lady said. \u201cYou are the strongest Practitioner of this age. But you are undisciplined and dangerous.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t plan on using any magic,\u201d I said.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYou never plan it, Symon. That is your biggest problem. Let me show you what you could be.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

With that, she put a cold, dead hand on my arm and the vision began…<\/span><\/p>\n

The Prodigal’s Foole<\/em>  — Available Now!<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Present Day The old lady next to me in the window seat died somewhere over the Atlantic. I know because she told me. \u201cSymon Bryson.\u201d The husky voice surprised me. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":42,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-43","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-c37-tpf"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rbwood.com\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rbwood.com\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rbwood.com\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rbwood.com\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rbwood.com\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rbwood.com\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rbwood.com\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rbwood.com\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rbwood.com\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rbwood.com\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}